The Almighty

by Irving Wallace

  "This isn't an interview, is it?"

  "No, it's something personal," Victoria said hastily. "It's really something I'd like to discuss with you in private."

  Kim looked her over. "Ed didn't knock you up, did he?"

  "Oh, God, no. Nothing like that."

  "All right," said Kim grudgingly, "come on in."

  Victoria walked past Kim through the dark entry, to be blinded by the white brightness of the large living room. Kim, behind her, said, "Sit down anywhere. Would you like a drink?"

  Victoria shook her head. "No, thanks."

  There were three pillow-strewn green sofas, and Victoria chose the one to her left. She watched Kim go to the bar, retrieve a half-finished drink, come toward her. Victoria could see that the woman's gait was unsteady, and the harsh lighting in the living room had aged her considerably. She was disheveled, and there were lines of discontent in her face.

  Kim sat down on the middle sofa, took a slow swallow from her glass, and set it on the coffee table.

  "What about Ed Armstead?" said Kim. "What do you want to know, and why?"

  Victoria's fingers worried her purse. "I'm not sure how to begin," Victoria said.

  "Just begin," said Kim.

  "I work for Edward Armstead, as you know. I'm one of the new reporters at the Record. I went to Europe for him, with another reporter, to research a series on modern-day terrorism, and some other stories. During that period, and recently, a lot of things happened that made me worry a little."

  "Worry about what?"

  "About Mr. Armstead himself. I—I don't know how to say it. I want to be honest with you, but I'm a little afraid. I'm afraid you might repeat to Mr. Armstead what I have to tell you."

  "And he'll fire you?"

  "Something like that."

  "I don't know what you have on your mind, or if I can help you with it. But one thing for sure. You can be as honest as you like. You don't have to worry about me repeating anything. Repeat anything? I'm not speaking to the bastard anymore. I hate his guts." She picked up her glass, took another swallow. "What's the bastard done to you? Go ahead, tell me."

  "Nothing. He's done nothing to me personally. But I am concerned about what he may be doing to other people."

  Kim seemed to have misunderstood. "He's done plenty to me, to his wife and to me. Neglecting us, abusing us. He's a bastard. Most people don't know it, but he's a real bastard."

  "I don't know anything about that," said Victoria. "I meant, the way he's been treating people worldwide. The harm he may be doing them. I'm referring to his interest in terrorism. He seems to be close to terrorists, possibly condoning, possibly even inspiring, some of their activities. Certainly, he knows more about each recent terrorist act than anyone else. He seems to be writing about it as it happens. He's the first in print with each event. It leads me to believe he has some terrorist connection."

  Victoria had been more direct than she had intended, but she felt that she could trust this woman, and was now relieved that she had put it on the line. She waited for Kim's reply.

  Kim was finishing her drink. "Terrorists," mumbled Kim vaguely. "You think he has something to do with them?"

  "I want to know what you think, Miss Nesbit."

  Kim contemplated her empty glass. "Power," she said. "He likes it. He'd trample on anyone for power."

  "Do you mean that?"

  "He'd do anything for power."

  "Like what?"

  "He'd kill for power."

  Victoria was not sure that Kim was sober enough to know what she was saying. "Can you prove it?" Victoria asked.

  Kim relapsed into silence for a spell. "I can tell you plenty—" she muttered. She raised her head. "—but I won't."

  "You won't?"

  "I can't." With effort, she managed to rise. "You better go." She headed to the bar, weaving, to pour another drink.

  Victoria came up swiftly and followed her. "If you don't feel well, maybe we can talk another time."

  Kim set her glass on the bar. "Another time, yes. I'm going to lie down."

  Victoria was scribbling on her pad. She tore the page out and pushed it into Kim's hand. "Let me give you my address and phone number," Victoria said. "I'll be there almost every evening." She sought Kim's attention. "I hope you consider what we've been discussing, and get in touch with me."

  "Maybe," said Kim. "Goodbye."

  Entering the luxurious lobby of the On Fifth Towers, Victoria went straight to the uniformed guard at the table.

  She had to make sure that Armstead was not in the apartment.

  "Has Mr. Armstead come home yet?" she inquired. Flipping open her red wallet, she showed her press pass. "I'm with Arm-stead Communications."

  "Not yet. Mr. Armstead's not back yet."

  "Actually, it's Mrs. Armstead I want to see. Is she in?"

  "She's always in." The guard reached for the phone. "Who should I say is calling?"

  "Miss Weston. I work for Mr. Armstead's newspaper, the Record. Say—say I have something to deliver to Mrs. Armstead."

  The guard rang up, repeated the message, listened, nodded at the phone and hung up. "Okay, Miss Weston. Go on up to the penthouse."

  Ascending in the noiseless elevator, Victoria knew that all her hopes for a lead were pinned on Hannah Armstead. The session with Kim Nesbit had been futile. She had probably been too intoxicated to understand anything Victoria had said to her. Kim had definitely been hostile to her lover, yet too frightened to reveal any information. Too frightened or too drunk. Hannah would be another matter. Nick had advised her that the Arm-steads got on badly. At the same time, Hannah was Armstead's wife, and no matter how she felt about him, she might be more protective. Victoria knew she would have to proceed with care.

  There was only one apartment on the penthouse floor, and the grand entrance door off the elevator bore a single word lettered in brass: ARMSTEAD.

  Getting up her courage, Victoria pressed the doorbell. She could hear the faint chimes inside.

  She hoped that Hannah herself would answer the doorbell. At first, no one answered. Victoria was about to ring the bell again when the door opened.

  A flat-faced, brawny woman—she appeared to be of Nordic or Germanic origin—wearing a starched white nurse's outfit, filled the entry space.

  "Yes?" she said.

  "I'm with Armstead Communications," said Victoria, "and I'm supposed to see Hannah Armstead."

  "Sorry, miss. You picked the wrong day. Doctor's orders are, she's to have no visitors today."

  "This is a personal matter. Mrs. Armstead would consider it vital."

  "Not today, miss. I've got to obey the doctor."

  "Is Mrs. Armstead ill?"

  "After breakfast, she suffered a severe attack of ptomaine poisoning. They had to use a stomach pump on her."

  "Will she be all right?"

  "She can thank the Good Lord. They got it all out in time. She's recovering, but she's weak, and not allowed to see anybody for a day or two."

  With a sigh of relief that Hannah had survived, Victoria said, "I'd like to leave her a personal note. Do you mind giving her one?"

  "No harm in that," said the nurse.

  "Just give me a second—" Victoria found her pad and pen, realizing she would have to take a chance with what she wrote.

  She saw no choice. So she wrote, "I work for your husband. Must see you privately about him. Utmost importance. Please don't let him see note or my name. Thanks. Victoria Weston." Beneath her name, she printed her apartment telephone number.

  Tearing off the slip, she folded it and gave it to the nurse. "This is for Hannah Armstead. For her eyes only. No one else is to see it."

  "Whatever you say, miss."

  "You don't know how much I appreciate this."

  Starting for the elevator, Victoria changed her mind about riding it down. There was always the chance that she might run into Edward Armstead riding it up. The one person she wanted to avoid right now was Armstead. She detoured to
ward the staircase.

  Going down the steps, she realized that she should hurry if she wanted to get back to her apartment in time for the call from Sid Lukas in Paris. But then she slowed.

  Somehow, Carlos didn't matter anymore.

  Victoria was after bigger game.

  In his Sherry Netherland bedroom, Harry Dietz, fully dressed, had propped the pillows of his bed against the headboard and reclined against them as he began to scan the first edition of tomorrow's New York Times. He liked to pay attention to what the opposition was doing daily, yet this evening he was barely attentive to the print.

  The telephone at his bedside should have rung an hour or more ago. Gus Pagano, called back to New York, had been given his orders, but his report was long overdue. Dietz was an efficient man who expected efficiency in others. Pagano's tardiness was inexplicable, unless something had gone wrong. Dietz began to worry.

  That instant, he heard the welcome jingle of the telephone. He took up the receiver.

  "Hello," he said anxiously.

  "It's Gus."

  "About time," said Dietz with mingled irritation and relief. "The job finished?"

  "Finished, hell," said Pagano, revealing his own irritation, "it's not even started."

  Dietz sat up on the bed. "What do you mean?"

  "I thought you told me the blond was heading straight back to her apartment at West Seventy-third."

  "She was. I even checked the garage. She signed out a company car over an hour and a half ago. She was going to her apartment."

  "Well, she never made it," said Pagano. "I've got our hit man on the other line, holding. He says she's not there."

  "Has he been inside?"

  "Twice already. No problem getting in. She doesn't have a special lock. No Medico cylinder lock, nothing like that. Probably promised to her for later. For now, just a rinky-dink one. A hairpin job. He got in okay. But no one was there. He waited awhile and tried again. Still nobody there. You sure she was going to the apartment?"

  "Where else would she go?" Dietz said with exasperation. "I don't know what's delayed her but she'll be there."

  "What do you want our man to do?"

  "Can't he just stay someplace outside the apartment and watch for her arrival? And then follow her in."

  "Won't work. He wanted to do that but there's no safe observation point on that floor."

  "Then let him go inside her apartment and wait for her."

  "Too dangerous," said Pagano. "What if she came in with three or four people? They might trap him."

  "Goddam it," said Dietz, "then let him go on doing what he has been doing. Let him wait a half hour and go back. I want him to go back every half hour until he finds her and does the job."

  "I'll tell him." Pagano hesitated. "You know, each time he does it, he's exposing himself more. The risk is higher. It's going to cost more."

  "Fuck the cost," said Dietz shrilly, out of temper. "We just want him to do the job. I have to go to the office now. The next time you call, I want to know we've got rid of her. You hear me?"

  "Hear you loud and clear."

  "Call me there."

  Dietz hung up angrily. Only thing Pagano had to say was, It's going to cost more. Highway robbers. All they ever thought of was money. Didn't anyone ever take pride in his profession anymore?

  He swung off the bed, preparing for a late conference at the office with Armstead, with a man who took real pride in everything he did.

  Kim Nesbit had tried to nap, and maybe she had. An hour had passed since she'd gone to lie down, and now she was wide awake once more. Her hangover wasn't bad, all things considered—the smallest throb of headache, puffiness around the eyes, dry mouth and tongue. Overall, she felt somewhat sobered.

  Sitting up, she wondered whether she should go to the bathroom for aspirin or go to the bar for a drink.

  She went to the bar for a drink.

  After pouring scotch on the rocks, she shambled about the living room. It was like being at the bottom of the Grand Canyon alone. She turned on the entry hall light, saw that tomorrow morning's two newspapers—the Record and the Times—had been slipped through the mail slot in the front door. She stooped, reached for them, brought them to the middle sofa, dropping them there to read later.

  Coming around the middle sofa, sipping her scotch, she saw that a cushion was indented and she bent over to puff it up. She saw that a cushion on another sofa had been used and, patting that one to straighten it out, she dimly remembered that she'd had a visitor earlier in the evening.

  The girl from the paper who'd wanted to know some personal things about Ed Armstead.

  She sat down with her scotch, drank it and tried to recall more. Her memory, usually foggy, had more visibility than a few hours ago. She recalled the girl with clarity, and tried to hear her again. The girl had wondered about Ed's front-page exclusive stories on terrorist acts, and had speculated on the possibility that Ed might have a personal connection with terrorists. For some reason Kim had characterized Ed as a perfect bastard, which was true, and as a power-hungry monster, which was also true. After that, Kim could not recall their conversation.

  Swallowing the last of her scotch, Kim trudged back to the bar for a refill, dropped two ice cubes into the empty glass and dribbled three ounces of scotch out over the ice. She held up the amber-colored glass, examined it, decided that she had been niggardly with herself, deserved more, deserved a longer drink, and she lowered the glass and added two more ounces of scotch. Better. Sipping her drink steadily, she began thinking of Ed Armstead once more.

  He was a bastard, a lousy bastard. Neglectful of her needs and cruel to her person. She was glad to be rid of him.

  She surveyed her barn of a living room. Inanimate objects as far as the eye could see. No living, pulsating, warm human being around, except her own lonely little self here in the corner of the sofa.

  Christ, loneliness was the worst curse on earth, and she was lonely, isolated from all humanity and by herself, alone with herself, a person she could not cope with.

  She needed someone, sometime, a flesh-and-blood man.

  The only man she knew was Edward Armstead. A bastard, sure enough, but at least her bastard.

  Yesterday they'd had a fight. She'd called him everything on earth, terrible things. He had done the same to her. He had roared out of the apartment in a fury. At the time, she had not wondered if he would ever come back. Now she wondered if he would. Had she alienated him forever? She wanted him in her unpopulated life once more. Even if he didn't come by enough, he did come by sometimes. Even if he wasn't loving and kind, he did want her body, did join her, did enjoy her.

  A crumb, a morsel, not to be ignored when you are starving.

  She sorted out strategies, means of winning him back.

  One floated upward through the fog and appealed to her. The girl earlier this evening, the girl from his newspaper snooping around into his private life. That was a valid excuse for calling him, calling him with a favor, to alert him, to warn him that one of his staff was prying into his affairs behind his back.

  He would be grateful, touched by Kim's concern for him and her caring, and appreciative of her intelligence and warning.

  He would see who counted in his life. All would be forgiven. He would be back, and the room no longer a desert.

  She fumbled for the piece of paper with the girl's name, address, number that she'd left on the bar, found it under her glass being used as a coaster, and with the soggy piece of paper in hand she reeled to the sofa, fell into it next to the olive-green telephone, and dialed Ed Armstead's private number with its private line in the study of his apartment. She held on as it rang and rang. No answer, nobody there. That meant if he wasn't there, he was probably not out somewhere but still in his office. Kim's forefinger sought the dial again. She misdialed twice, but the third time had the satisfaction of dialing it right. The phone rang once, and was picked up.

  "Hello, Ed," she said. "This is Kim."

 
; "This isn't Edward," a voice replied. "This is Harry Dietz."

  "I was calling Ed on his private line. I want Ed."

  "I was at his desk, working. Let me see if he's around."

  "You go and see," she said.

  Abruptly, as though someone's hand had clamped over the other mouthpiece, all sound was choked off.

  But not completely.

  The hand over the mouthpiece had apparently slipped a little. She could hear a distant voice in the background, and she heard it state with annoyance, "I told you what to say, dammit. Tell her I'm not here." It was Ed's voice in the background. Then Dietz's voice full volume into the phone. "I've been looking, Kim. He's not here."

  Kim was livid with rage. "You prick, he's right there, I heard him! You tell him to come to the phone right now, I have something important for him. Tell him if he won't come, he'll be sorry."

  There was a pause, and Dietz intoning again, "Kim, he's not here."

  "You tell that motherfucker to drop dead!" she screamed, and she slammed down the phone.

  For five minutes she lay back in the sofa stewing, trying to give her heart time to stop pounding.

  I'll get him, the bastard, she told herself. I'll get him if it's the last thing I do.

  She resumed her drinking to help the fog descend.

  While there was a shaft of clarity remaining, Kim tried to map her revenge.

  That girl who had come calling, the one from his staff. She searched for the soggy piece of paper, and blurred as the name was, she was able to make it out. Victoria Weston. The one who had been looking into Ed Armstead, who had suspicions about him.

  Yeah, that girl, maybe that was the way to get even, to find something to tell that girl. But what? She beseeched her faded memory to provide some remembrance of yesterday's quarrel, for something Ed had revealed to her. She revived one crazy outburst, fragments she could recall of it: what happens to people depends on me—or something like that—and: I make the news, I make life that goes on in the world.

  Words to that effect. Had they implied that he was directing terrorists? Maybe yes, maybe no. Would they be useful for Victoria Weston, have some special meaning to her? They might, but probably not.